


those walls i built (baby they're tumbling down)

by harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)



Series: Blow Us All Away [9]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, pillow forts, the fluffiest of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/pseuds/harpers_mirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kids build a pillow fort. The adults wreck it completely. In between, there's gratuitous Pryce & Carter, hair petting, and a whole lot of flailing. Plus, y'know, <i>feelings.</i> </p><p>Totally self-indulgent and the fluffiest thing I've ever written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	those walls i built (baby they're tumbling down)

“Alright kids, bedtime!”

The announcement was met with a chorus of groans and protests, but their father wasn’t having it.

“Everybody out of the pillow fort,” Dominik commanded and, with great reluctance and sighing as though he’d ordered them on a forced march across Siberia, his four children piled out of the fort ahead of him. Renée got up and started to follow them out but her husband shook his head.

“I got this, hon. Relax.” He gave her a quick peck on the lips and then ducked out of their cave of pillows and blankets.

“Holler if you need me!” called Renée after him. She turned to sit back down, only to find that Doug had stretched out to sprawl across the place she’d previously occupied.

She sighed. “Seriously Doug?”

He grinned up at her from his nest of cushions. “Sorry boss. Thought you were leaving so I took advantage of the opportunity that presented itself to me. I can make some space for you.” He wriggled sideways slightly which did absolutely nothing except destabilize a foundation cushion. Fixing it back in place, he glanced up at her guiltily. “Whoops.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Renée answered, flapping a dismissive hand at him. “Building it was the fun part. The kids’ll probably tear it down tomorrow and redo it all.” Glancing down, she considered the amount of space left next to Eiffel. Yes, she _could_ sit elsewhere in their fort, or even move out to the sofa like a real grown-up. But damn it, he’d claimed the side of the fort with the big squashy floor cushions and it looked comfy. (Also, half the sofa was currently being used as building material.) And there was just something comfortingly warm and safe about being surrounded by the fort.

Reaching a decision, she knelt down. “Sit up a sec, would ya?” Eiffel complied, though he looked slightly confused. Renée scooted into the vacant space where his head had previously been, shifted around a few times to sink into the pillows a bit, and told him to lay back down.

“But you’re in the way,” he said, head cocked to one side like a baffled puppy.

“Well yes, the options were you laying on me or me _sitting_ on you. I figured the first one was more comfortable for everyone involved.”

Eiffel grinned, slightly bashfully, she thought. “Oh. Duh. Well, thanks for that then.” Slightly awkwardly, he laid back down, his head resting in her lap, eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Her hands found their way into his hair and he hummed happily.

“Imagine,” he said after a moment, “that someone took a picture of us like this now and sent it back in time to us on the station. How _confused_ would we have been?”

“I’d have been absolutely horrified,” Renée deadpanned.

“Honestly, same,” replied Eiffel. “Well, no, _horrified_ is a pretty strong word for it, but definitely pretty shocked and confused. But then I’d probably just get distracted by the fact that a time-traveler had just showed up and handed me something, so that would probably take precedence.”

“Well sure,” Renée agreed, nodding seriously. “Pryce & Carter #709: Should you encounter any beings from another galaxy, time period, or plane of existence, don’t panic. Train all nearby weapons on them, but do so calmly.”

Doug tipped his head back to stare at her in horror. “You... _how..._ Okay, I don’t know which is more disturbing. The fact that someone actually included that in the Survival Guide or the fact that you can still quote the Survival Guide chapter and verse _thirteen years later.”_ Frowning, he continued. “And hang on a sec, I don’t remember it saying _anything_ about time travel...”

“You forgot the third option.”

“What third option? The one where you’ve actually been a robot this whole time and that’s how you still remember the whole manual?!”

“The one where I just made that up but because you don’t remember all 1001 tips you have _no idea_ whether or not I’m messing with you.”

Eiffel continued to stare up at his former commanding officer with a look of mingled horror and admiration.

She smiled blandly back at him, revealing nothing, as she idly ran a hand through his perpetually-messy hair.

Dominik chose this moment to re-enter into the pillow fort.

“What did I miss?” he asked.

Without taking his eyes off Renée, Doug spoke. “The fact that your wife is either a robot or a devious, devious woman.”

“Oh is that all? That’s not exactly new information. Well, the robot part is. But not the devious thing. That’s one of the reasons I married her.”

Dominik crawled across the fort’s floor and leaned in to kiss his wife, meaning that Eiffel quickly found himself as the filling in an adorable couple sandwich.

He cleared his throat lightly. “Uh, guys? You know I’m still down here, right?”

Dom didn’t break off the kiss but gave Doug a thumbs-up.

“Oh. Okay? Just checking.” His position meant that he couldn’t exactly look away without moving kind of a lot. He considered shutting his eyes, but that struck him as creepy and he dismissed the idea. It wasn’t that the view wasn’t very _nice_ and all, and, he reasoned, if they didn’t want him watching they shouldn’t be making out directly above his head, and -

Doug wasn’t sure exactly what Dominik did with his mouth to make Renée react like she did but it must have been good, because the hand still tangled in his hair tightened, pulling it in a not-at-all unpleasant way, and the _sound_ she made as she did so...

The kissing pair above him broke apart, looking slightly flushed and even more slightly guilty.

“Sorry about that, Eiffel,” Renée managed, sounding embarrassed. She started disentangling her hand from his hair.

“N-no problem, boss. Feel free to carry on, I’m fine!” His face went red as he realized he’d actually said that out loud and he chuckled awkwardly. “I mean, uh, don’t worry about me, everything’s fine down here and...” Mortified, he scrubbed both hands over his face and then left them there, trying to hide his red-faced confusion.

Eiffel heard her laughing quietly, felt the vibrations of it against his cheek, and felt her legs shift slightly beneath his head. He chanced a peek out between his hands, tilting his head back to see what was happening.

Dominik had settled in beside his wife, curling himself around her and resting his head on her shoulder. She in turn had sort of melted against him, shifting Eiffel’s head from her lap to resting on the side of her upper thigh. He also realized that, as bumbled and awkward as his reassurance had been, she was still playing with his hair, carding it gently with one hand while the other rested on his shoulder. He sighed and slowly dragged his hands away from his face, relaxing into her touch.

It was times like this that the lines of what was and what might have been blurred, where Doug felt like he could catch a glimpse of what, in another life, he might have had. That this might be his house, his husband or wife, his family...his pillow fort, as silly as it sounded. He would never begrudge his friends their happiness, not for anything in the world, but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel permanently on the outside looking in.

Lost as he was in these moody thoughts, he failed to notice two things. The first was that Dominik, now comfortably settled around Renée, had started kissing his way down her neck making her sigh with contentment. Her hand slid from Eiffel’s shoulder and began to idly trace patterns on his upper arm.

The second was the considering look that Renée shot her husband after he pulled away. He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “Your choice, darling,” he murmured in her ear. “Where you lead...”

She gazed down at Eiffel for a long moment, taking in the closed eyes with their long dark lashes, the slight frown line furrowing his brow, and moved her right hand from his arm to lightly brush his cheek. The way he (unconsciously, Renée thought) leaned into her hand, seeking all the contact he could get, cemented her decision.

Tracing her hand down his cheek, under his chin, and around to the other side, she cupped his face. Running her thumb over his cheekbone, she leaned down and kissed him softly.

Eiffel froze. Renée felt it and pulled away, cursing internally. She tried to catch his gaze but his eyes were shut and did not immediately open.

“Hey,” she said gently, brushing her hand against his cheek again. “Doug. You still with us?”

Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. “Uh. Yeah. Sorry, boss. Still here.” He blinked a few times, then spoke again. “At the risk of sounding like...something stupid...that really _did_ just happen, right? I mean, an awful lot of stuff happens only in my head and I _thought_ I was pretty good at telling the difference but...”

Dominik chuckled quietly. “Well, as long as what you think happened includes Renée kissing you, then yes. I saw that too. Rather a nice sight, actually.”

At that Doug’s eyes opened wider. Tilting his head back farther to look at the other man, he cleared his throat. “You, uh, you mean that?”

“Absolutely. There are few things I enjoy more than watching my wife enjoy herself.”

“Hi, still here,” Renée piped up, tugging Eiffel’s head back to look at her. She felt him shiver slightly at the pull on his hair and hid a smile. “Sitting right here and wanting to be a part of this conversation, actually.”

“Oh! Sorry.” He looked up at her properly and a slightly daft smile crossed his features. “Hi.”

She smiled back down at him and his breath caught for a moment. She didn’t help matters by kissing him again, a touch more forcefully this time. When they broke apart, Eiffel was flushed to the tips of his ears and they were both breathing heavily.

Propping himself up on one elbow, Eiffel took a second to catch his breath. “Okay, wow. That was... That was something. What, uh, was it exactly?”

Renée glanced over at her husband, clearly hoping he’d take the lead on this particular conversation, to no avail. Sighing, she turned back to her friend.

“Eiffel...oh god damn it, are you really going to make me spell this out?”

“Uh...” he replied, clearly trying to give the right answer but desperately unsure as to what it might be. “Yeeesss?” He cleared his throat, looking away. “Because as much as I would seriously enjoy a repeat of the last five minutes, possibly on loop for the rest of my life, I do think we ought to, I dunno, _talk_ about the fact that you just kissed me? I mean, I know our relationship” - and here he indicated all three of them in a sweeping gesture - “has always been kind of unconventional, but not, y’know. Not like this. I didn’t even know you guys were into that kind of thing.”

“Eiffel! We’re not ‘into that kind of thing!’ We’re into _you,_ you moron!”

Doug stared at her agape. Renée looked exasperated and her face matched her hair. Behind them, Dominik dissolved into a pile of hopeless giggling.

“You two,” he gasped through his laughter, “are so bad at communicating with each other it’s actually _amazing_ you haven’t killed each other long before now.”

They turned to glare at him as he continued to laugh, sinking into the cushions. Renée whacked him with a pillow -

\- and caught Eiffel full in the face on the backswing. Guiltily, she dropped it, stammering an apology. Her former communications officer rubbed his nose thoughtfully, mouthing the word _ow_ as he did so, and quick as a wink, grabbed a second pillow and swung it at her.

The situation devolved from there. All three of them were armed by this point and everyone was fair game. Dominik had managed to grab a small pillow in each hand and seemed to be working from a strategy of “swing at everything that moved” which mostly just ended up involving a lot of flailing. Both of his opponents realized that ganging up on him was their safest bet and Dom quickly found himself restrained, his wife straddling him and pinning his hands, while Eiffel sat on his feet wearing a triumphant smirk.

Dominik knew when he was beat and gave up struggling as a bad job. Waggling his eyebrows up at the woman looming over him, he said, grinning, “I surrender.” Shifting slightly to look past her, he caught Eiffel’s eye. “Entirely. So what do you say, Doug?”

The smirk fell off of Doug’s face as he remembered what they’d just been talking about

“I, uh...” His eyes flicked back and forth between the woman in front of him and the man beneath him and a flash of nervousness crossed his face.

Minkowski, turning where she sat atop her husband, looked stricken. “Eiffel, ‘no’ is okay. Oh god, I’m sorry, I’ve handled this _completely_ wrong, and - ”

He kissed her, silencing her fretting and reassuring her all in one fell swoop. Pulling back slightly and breaking the kiss, he cupped her face with his hands and rested his forehead against hers.

“Don’t worry Minkowski,” he said, kissing her gently one more time. “You definitely handled this...well, you handled it like _you.”_ Hastily, before she could get upset with him, he added, “And I _like_ you, so that's okay.”

Glancing down at Dominik still lying beneath them and watching them with dark, intent eyes, he asked, “This, uh, this _is_ still okay, right?”

The other man chuckled lowly. “Renée, darling, please confirm for Doug just how okay I am with all this.”

Minkowski’s finally-fading blush was back with a vengeance. Quietly, she responded, “We wouldn’t have said anything if we weren’t in total agreement about this. And we won’t do anything else without all _three_ of us in similarly-total agreement.”

Dominik chimed in, “We both want this but more than that, we want you to be happy and comfortable, whatever that means for the three of us and our relationship. So again I ask: What do you say, Doug?”

Eiffel looked back and forth between them, something very much like longing writ large across his features. Taking a deep breath, he slid off of Dom’s feet to sit beside them and Renée followed suit, while her husband, finally free of his restraints, sat up, still clutching a pillow.

“I say I’d be completely crazy to turn down that kind of offer,” he said with a shy but genuine grin.

“Smart man,” replied Dom, pulling Doug toward him with one hand and catching his wife’s hand with the other. He intertwined his fingers with hers as he kissed Doug enthusiastically.

Tangled together, the three of them sank into the nest of pillows and, by the time they had the presence of mind to move up to the master bedroom, the fort was in utter shambles.

 

* * *

 

The next morning saw a disgruntled Margot surveying the wreck of her hard work with hands on hips and an exasperated expression that was reminiscent of her mother.

“Daddy, what _happened?”_ she asked in dismay as the twins clambered over the fallen structure, and Morgan tugged a blanket free of the mess.

“Pillow fight,” her father answered, not turning from where he was making pancakes at the stove. “Blame your Uncle Doug.”

“That’s what Mom always says,” sighed Margot as her uncle choked on his coffee. Resigned, she turned and began sorting the cushions to start rebuilding the fort, completely missing her mother shaking with silent laughter at the kitchen table.

(Years later, the memory would drift to the surface of Margot’s mind. Exactly what had happened to her pillow fort clicked into horrifying clarity and it was _her_ turn to choke on her coffee.)


End file.
